#AcademicRunPlaylist - 10/6/25

It heated up in Boston today, and while running through it I listened to talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was an interesting talk by Tatsunori Hashimoto on data efficient language modeling at the Kempner Institute at Harvard University https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pookfyF5Vu4

Next was a nice talk by Chuchu Fan on neural certificates for robotic system planning and control at the Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boISwrOPfxk

Next was an excellent talk by Trevor Darrell on using LLMs to guide vision and action models at MIT Robotics. While it's buried a bit here, Darrell essentially advocates for the one area I think these models are useful where the truth matters - data labeling, demonstrating impressive results. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBPIjIEUZPo

Next was an important conversation with Exequiel (Zeke) Hernandez (👋) on the truth about immigration and the US's recent self-destructive (not to mention unethical) policies at the New York University School of Law. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7v_qvQMgHQ

Next was "The Wild Life of Our Bodies" by Rob Dunn. I loved "The Man Who Touched His Own Heart," so I had high expectations for this book. When Dunn sticks to his expertise, it's fantastic. The chapters on parasites and diseases shine. Unfortunately, most of the other chapters are mostly just a summary of a few out of date popular science books - the chapters on the brain are particularly inaccurate. The first chapters are worth a look though https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-wild-life-of-our-bodies-rob-dunn?variant=32122616283170

Last was "Pushing Cool" by Keith Wailoo. Wailoo has written probably the best product history I've ever read, albeit about a deadly, extremely problematic one. Tracing the development of menthol cigarettes, tobacco companies' entanglement with academics to promote them, and the sophisticated marketing research underlying the industry, this book lays out the evolution of the public understanding, business outcomes, and adoption trends of a product that has only been lightly tweaked over the decades. Beneath it all is the relatively late targeting of the Black community, and the damning boosterism of various community, state, and industry actors in preserving menthol cigarettes as a viable product. Highly recommend https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo95484973.html